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February 2, 2026<\/p>\n
1 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n New chicken-sized dinosaur baffles paleontologists<\/p>\n The tiny Foskeia pelendonum was a plant-eating dinosaur with a \u201cweird\u201d anatomy, scientists say<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n A reconstruction of the dinosaur Foskeia pelendonum.<\/p>\n A tiny plant-eating dinosaur that was about the same size of a chicken and occupied what\u2019s now northern Spain some 125 million years ago is baffling scientists.<\/p>\n The Early Cretaceous creature is described in a new paper published on Sunday in Papers in Paleontology.<\/p>\n The dinosaur, Foskeia pelendonum\u2014named for the Greek words for \u201clight\u201d and \u201cforaging\u201d\u2014was about half a meter long, with an unusual skull and teeth that suggest a \u201cnovel mode of feeding\u201d behavior, the authors write.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n \u201cIts anatomy is weird in precisely the kind of way that rewrites evolutionary trees,\u201d said Pen\u00e9lope Cruzado-Caballero, an associate professor at the University of La Laguna in Spain and an author of the paper, in a statement.<\/p>\n The growth trajectory of F. pelendonum compared with an adult chicken.<\/p>\n The new species could help paleontologists better understand the lineage of the ornithischians, or \u201cbird-hipped\u201d dinosaurs.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning, we knew these bones were exceptional because of their minute size,\u201d said Fidel Torcida Fern\u00e1ndez-Baldor, a co-author of the new research and director of the Dinosaur Museum in Salas de los Infantes, Spain, who first discovered the fossils, in the same statement. \u201cIt is equally impressive how the study of this animal overturns global ideas on ornithopod dinosaur evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. 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I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 2, 2026 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm New chicken-sized dinosaur baffles paleontologists The tiny Foskeia pelendonum was a plant-eating dinosaur with a \u201cweird\u201d anatomy, scientists say By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron A reconstruction of the dinosaur Foskeia pelendonum. A tiny plant-eating dinosaur that was about the same size<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[383,22752,10389,22753],"class_list":{"0":"post-43537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-baffles","9":"tag-chickensized","10":"tag-dinosaur","11":"tag-paleontologists"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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